Summary
A Manhattan moonshine prince, Fred Peyton, slumming for slum-poetry, finds in tenement candle-glow a seamstress, Margaret Fallon, whose cheekbones could cut Wall Street contracts; he haunts her fire-escape like a gilded gargoyle until nitro-glycerine fireworks under a Hudson culvert flips their taxi, shredding retinas and scruples alike. While Margaret stitches darkness, Peyton stitches forgery—one ink-veiled wedding licence—trading his best friend John Browning’s platinum-heiress bride for the blind girl as if swapping opera boxes. Chloroform vows are whispered, seals are licked, and a stranger’s ring colder than bankruptcy clamps Margaret’s finger before sobriety re-enters the room. Dawn drips truth in slow doses: Browning, nursing a concussed conscience, believes he demanded the ceremony in a stupor; Margaret, shipped to a charity ward, believes herself abandoned to widow-coloured dreams. Months later, sight seeping back like dawn through cracked tenement glass, she wanders into a Park Avenue employment agency where Browning, now bankrupt of both money and memory, hires her as a governess to non-existent children—an excuse to keep her laughter in his echoing mansion. They fall in love over burnt toast and Bach preludes, each ignorant that law already welded their names in indissoluble iron. In the wings, Peyton courts the original heiress, juggling securities and affections until a discarded mistress, half Medea half flapper, plants a silver slug in his tailored ribs. The gunshot reverberates through courthouse corridors, unsealing the veiled marriage, freeing the lovers to discover that the contract they feared was the salvation they never sought.
Synopsis
Drinking pals Fred Peyton and John Browning are both members of high society. Upon meeting impoverished Margaret Fallon, Peyton is so impressed with her beauty that he becomes a frequent visitor at the Fallon house. One evening, while returning from dinner, an explosion overturns their automobile and Margaret is temporarily blinded. Meanwhile, Browning has become engaged to a wealthy woman whom Peyton covets for her wealth and Margaret's blindness provides the opportunity for him to obtain this prize. Stealing his friend's wedding license, Peyton substitutes Margaret's name for that of Browning's intended bride and after intoxicating his friend, Peyton sends for Margaret and marries her to Browning. The next day, Peyton lies to his friend that he had drunkenly insisted upon the marriage. Later, when Margaret's eyesight is restored and she is seeking employment, she meets Browning and the two fall in love, unaware that they are husband and wife. Eventually, Browning learns that the woman from whom he is seeking a divorce is actually the woman he loves and, after Peyton is shot by a former mistress, all ends happily.
Review Excerpt
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A Nitrate Nocturne: How The Veiled Marriage Turns Moral Rot into Gold
Picture a reel still warm from the projectionist’s claw, its acetate breath smelling of popcorn and perdition—that’s the smoky incense curling around The Veiled Marriage, a 1922 obscurity so steeped in cynicism it makes von Stroheim look like a boy scout. Forgotten for a century, this Manhattan bacchanalia of forged signatures and ocular trauma feels staggeringly nouveau, as though Twitter mob justice were already loiterin..."
